Benjamin Bloom was the creator of Bloom’s taxonomy. This taxonomy classifies and orders people’s learning, leading to better planning action by teaching professionals. In this sense, it is a fundamental tool for the teaching and learning process, which is why most teachers use it to establish learning goals and objectives. To know and delve more into the creation of Benjamín Bloom, do not hesitate to continue reading this article from : Bloom’s taxonomy: what it is, what it is for and objectives.
What is Bloom’s Taxonomy: Summary
As we have already mentioned, Benjamin BloomPhD in Education from the University of Chicago, was the creator of the Bloom’s taxonomy. It is a taxonomy that classify learning domains, that is, a list that classifies the skills and processes that may appear in school educational tasks and, therefore, become the object of evaluation. Thus, according to this taxonomy it is understood that, after carrying out a teaching-learning process, students must have acquired new skills and new knowledge.
Specifically, Benjamin Bloom developed a hierarchy of educational objectives that are intended to be achieved with the students. In this way, students cannot achieve the higher objectives without first having achieved the lower objectives classified in the hierarchy. Within this hierarchy, three domains are identified: the cognitive, the affective and the psychomotor, which we will delve into below.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Objectives
Taxa or classified groups (domains) are structured hierarchically. Each of these groups covers different subgroups or subareas and, at the same time, these large groups are conditioned and subordinated to larger groups. So the higher groups cannot be reached or achieved without having previously achieved the lower groups.
Thus, as we have mentioned, they distinguish three educational objectives or hierarchically classified domains: the cognitive domain, the affective domain and the psychomotor domain.
Bloom’s taxonomy: levels
1. Bloom’s cognitive domain
This domain of Bloom’s taxonomy refers to the intellectual area of the students. In addition, the cognitive domain includes six levels or subareas that must be taken into account: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
- Knowledge: This level refers to the knowledge that students must have about specific data and the ways and means of processing said data. Generally these are elements that must be memorized.
- Comprehension: For students, this level consists of capturing the direct meaning of a communication, a phenomenon, or the appreciation of an event that has happened. It is also worth noting that this level is subdivided into three other levels: transfer (changing one form of information for another), interpretation (explaining the concept in a personalized way), and extrapolation (determining possible results or consequences).
- Application: At this level, reference is made to the ability to apply the information learned to a real or hypothetically posed case or problem.
- Analysis: At this point is when the different parts of the same problem must be divided in order to be analyzed exhaustively. Thus, we understand three types of analysis: analysis of elements (identify the elements that make up a whole), analysis of relationships (capture the relationships existing in the same event) and analysis of organizational principles (identify master lines that support the structure of the problem. ).
- Synthesis: refers to the verification of the elements that make up a whole, that is, the verification of the different parts that make up the problem or situation to be evaluated.
- Assessment: This last level includes the critical attitude that students must have towards the facts that make up the problem.
2. Bloom’s affective domain
In this domain of Bloom’s taxonomy, educational objectives are based on students’ awareness and growth in terms of attitude, emotions and feelings (own and others). Within the affective domain, five subareas can be identified, arranged hierarchically, from the lowest to the highest level, which must be achieved in an orderly manner: reception, response, assessment, organization and characterization.
- Reception: At this level, students must be able to pay attention and passively observe their own emotions and attitudes and those of the people around them. In other words, it is an awareness of emotions and attitudes.
- Answer: Students must actively participate in their learning process, attending to stimuli (reception) and reacting to them in one way or another.
- Assessment: Students must assign values to objects, phenomena and/or information. It is an internalized and conscious behavior.
- Organization: At this level, students can group the different assigned values, the different information and ideas and accommodate all this within their own mental scheme. In this way, students can compare, relate and elaborate all the information learned.
- Characterization: At this level, the students have already forged a particular value or belief that influences their behavior, thus becoming a personal characteristic.
3. Bloom’s psychomotor domain
The educational objectives of the psychomotor domain refer to the change developed in the behavior, dexterity and/or psychomotor abilities of the students, such as, for example, the manipulation of objects with the hands. This domain of Bloom’s taxonomy comprises five subareas to consider: perception, predisposition, guided response, mechanical response, and overt complete response.
- Perception: This is the first of the levels and consists of students becoming aware of the outside world that surrounds them through their senses.
- Predisposition: Students must demonstrate that they are physically, mentally and emotionally prepared to be able to carry out the determined activities.
- Guided response: At this level, the students are guided by the teacher or by instructions that accompany them to carry out certain actions, that is, it is about carrying out actions using aids that will later be withdrawn at the right time.
- Mechanical response: When the students have performed the guided actions several times, it will give rise to a mechanical response for said actions. Therefore, this level represents the time before or before the response becomes a regular automated response.
- Obvious complete answer: This level refers to the moment in which the students are able to carry out these actions effectively and efficiently without needing any help.
What is Bloom’s taxonomy for?
Bloom’s taxonomy is very useful and effective for set learning objectives for students and, thus, plan the teaching-learning process. However, it should be noted that in order to plan the student learning process well, it is essential to be clear about a series of aspects. More specifically, the learning area, the objectives set, the evaluation instruments and tools, and the activities to be carried out must be clear.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Verbs
After making the relevant updates and revisions to Bloom’s taxonomy, it was considered necessary to make a specific modification: changing the use of nouns to the use of verbs. Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs updated refer to the fact of using verbs, and not nouns, to describe the educational objectives or levels that we find within the teaching-learning process. For example, some of these verbs are apply (application), evaluate (evaluation), define (definition), interpret (interpretation), among others.
Classifying the educational objectives of the updated Bloom’s taxonomy using verbs allows professionals to obtain an greater clarity on actions that their students must put into practice. However, it should be noted that these verbs are usually used only in the cognitive domain and its subareas or levels.
The verbs used are not the basis of the taxonomic classification or Bloom’s taxonomy, but rather correspond to the logical, psychological and pedagogical level that includes the expected objective of the students. In the following articles you will find what the and the are.
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Table
The table used in Bloom’s taxonomy refers to a verb table that are related to the description or definition of each of the determined educational objectives, generally in the case of the cognitive domain and its subareas.
In this sense, it is about creating a table in which the educational objectives to be met by the students appear in an orderly and sequentially classified manner. Each of these objectives has, in an adjacent column, its description and, in a following column, the related verbs.
As an example, we find the first objective “Knowledge”, which is defined as recognizing previously learned information and to which verbs are attributed such as: write, describe, identify, number, list, define, among others. Thus, it is a more clarifying way to organize educational objectives raised by the
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Bibliography
- Aliaga, SW (2011). Bloom’s Taxonomy. Cesar Vallejo University.
- Guzmán, H. (2007). Conceptual, methodological and operational aspects of learning objectives. Medical Education: Bolivian Medical Gazette, 72-79.